Oh, hello there. You caught me - I was just reading this incredibly big book about, um, words and... smart things. Do you mind if I push my sweatpants down to my ankles while we talk?

That's better. I'm sorry, What are we listening to? It's Luiz Bonfa, Solo in Rio 1959. Let me tell you something; 40 years ago me and R.P. McMurphy were delivering a shipment of rainbow colored hoola-hoops to the patagonia and this is all we listened to on our ride down there. It was magic; transcendental: a stomach full of barbiturates, a guiltless conscience, and a willing gullibility to believe that everything is just fine.

Everything is not fine of course, but don't tell Luiz Bonfa that, in 1959. That would be impossible; Not that I doubt time travel, I just don't think the stubborn SOB would listen, he doesn't even speak english - or sadness for that matter. At least his guitar doesn't. This guys pickin' like he's at some summer samba beach bonfire and the moon just married the girl from ipanema and he's playing the reception.

I imagine him, his fingers autonomous, staring at them, slack-jawed, as if in some salvia-induced stupor - wide eyed and drooling. That's what I'd do, if my hands spontaneously spewed whimsical fairy trails from the taut intestines of sheep.

By the fourth song, Sambolero, he's humming and la la-ing like a loon in love. It sounds like a bossa-nova song for when Ol' Chief breaks outta that crazy bin and runs for the hills.

I'm telling you this album is instant happy like Jackie Treehorn's house or bottle rockets.

Try ambivalently throwing a firecracker like "eh, that was alright I guess." If you do, you suck. You just shot fire from your hands man, that's amazing!

You can hear him breathing on the album like a sigh of "God Damnit Luiz! You're really doing it!" as he's looking out where the sea meets the sky and he just can't take it. I believe that he's a man who feels and knows when he does something amazing. I mean, he's shooting fireworks from his hands, man!


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